HD4850 with 128K BIOS?

[rake]

I recently bought two HIS HD4850's (H485QS1GP) with the hopes of running them in CrossFireX mode.

Well, so far I've had very little success: I can pair the cards up and install Catalyst 9.6 without too much fuss, but as soon as you put any load on the GPU's my system crashes.

I poked around with GPU-Z and RBE and found that one card has a 64K BIOS and the other 128K, which rather surprised me as I was under the impression that all 4850's had a 64K and that 4870's had the 128K. The BIOS dates differ by about 3 months and the ATOMBIOSBK used to flash them is also not the same.

So I'm wondering if this particular card was actually a 4870 that's been flashed into thinking it's a 4850 (although it's running GDDR3). It also has a 3000RPM fan where the other card is only 1500RPM.

Has anyone else ever come across a 128K BIOS on a 4850?

Are these discrepancies between the two cards I mentioned the cause for my CrossFire woes? or could it be my 600W PSU or perhaps Windows 7 x64?

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Can you upload the 128k bios please,i fancy a look at it in rbe.

 

[Mussels]

fill out your system specs in the user CP.

Its like going to a doctor - giving your own prognosis may lead us down the wrong path. I'm thinking PSU.

 

[rake]

Sure thing tigger... only obvious difference here are the PowerPlay settings/voltages.

I've filled in my system details in the CP.

 

[Mussels]

please provide a link to that ultra PSUs specs.

 

[rake]

http://www.ultraproducts.com/product_details.php?cPath=97&pPath=632&productID=637

I checked ATI/AMD's certified products page, and there are CrossFireX certified ULTRA 600W PSU's, although those seem to be the ones with dual 12v rails (XFINITY). Mine does not have dual rails afaik.


edit: One more thing that may or may not be pertinent... AC current over here is 240V, which means lower input amps. I'm wondering is this has an effect on the output amps as well.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

It looks just like a normal 4850 bios,but its 128k,it does'nt make sense.Is it a referance design card?

 

[rake]

Beats me, tigger. The bizarre thing is this is exactly the same product code as the card with the 64K BIOS.

http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-30.shtml

 

[Mussels]

after hunting around, this PDF gives details of his PSU.

http://www.ultraproducts.com/PDFs/spec_sheets/ULT40073/ULT40073_1.pdf

36A on a single 12V rail should be sufficient for what he's doing.

 

[rake]

According to eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Pro v2.5:

Total system should draw around 28A at stock voltages (factoring in two overclocked 4850's). Add another 6A for CPU overclocking, leaving me with 2A spare on the 12v rail. Naturally I've set CPU voltages and clock speed back to default values for the time being, but it didn't make a difference.

 

[Mussels]

having 2A spare doesnt mean its all roses, cheap/generic PSU's like the ultras tend to rate their peak, not their sustained. that means when all 38A is used, its guaranteed to not blow up - for at least one second.

That said, running at stock CPU with stock video cards, you should be well within its limits.

7 x64 has no crossfire issues for me, so it would either be the BIOS or the PSU. Now we just need to find a way to test, and narrow it down - you got another PSU you could use?

 

[rake]

You were right, it was a PSU issue, though not quite what we suspected... ahem.

I decided to try switching the cards around (I know, clutching at straws) and having done so and powered on the system, I was greeted by some very large red letters telling me I had not connected the power cable. WTF? I did a quick double check and all seemed good... then I noticed that the connector 'housing' for want of a better term, on the PSU end had pulled slightly out of the chassis, thus preventing the PCIE lead from seating properly.

Of course it's purely by chance that the dodgy connection was affecting the secondary card so I never saw the warning until swapping the cards around. Aargh!! I had literally spend all fecking weekend messing around with VBIOS tweaks to try and even out the differences in clock speeds and voltages which I thought were the problem -all in vain!

Anyways, thanks for the advice fellas... time to tidy up this rig, load some drivers and run some benchmarks

(I'll let you know how my 'cheap PSU' is getting on later )

 

[Mussels]

(I'll let you know how my 'cheap PSU' is getting on later )

Lol to the power connector. I knew i should have said "is it plugged in?" as my first question.

Your 600W ultra has 36A. my 750W corsair has 60A. 25% more wattage, for 60% more 12V amperage... it just makes your PSU seem like its over-stating its wattage.

Anyway, glad you solved the problem. I should go post a link to this in a thread where people are saying modular PSU's are awesome, and never give problems...

 

[Flyordie]

Lol to the power connector. I knew i should have said "is it plugged in?" as my first question.

Your 600W ultra has 36A. my 750W corsair has 60A. 25% more wattage, for 60% more 12V amperage... it just makes your PSU seem like its over-stating its wattage.

Anyway, glad you solved the problem. I should go post a link to this in a thread where people are saying modular PSU's are awesome, and never give problems...

lol, yeah even my 550W'r is giving me 42A on my 12V Rails, my EA380 gives me 28A on the 12V rail... Kinda awkward that a 128kb BIOS was thrown on... unless they ran out of 64kb chips or somethin.. lol.

 

[rake]

heh, you can badmouth my PSU all you like because right now I'm feeling nearly twice as 'furry' as before (almost doubled my FurMark score). I still like modular power supplies; having a clump of superfluous wires and connectors gathering dust and impeding airflow in my case really gets my goat, but I suppose I can look at a different brand if and when this one blows up. Hopefully that won't be for a while still, because next on my shopping list is some SSD's.

 

[Mussels]

oh its not badmouthing, its just pointing out that its on the lower end of the scale. If a problem were to occur, its where we'd be looking - others are merely agreeing with what i said (and giving you advice for the next PSU you purchase)

 

[LifeFlayer]

The 4850 I have also dumps to a 128kb bios with gpu-z... I wonder if that's the cause of my problem also. I'll upload my bios tomorrow as well to compare to the OP's. I have a Powercolor HD4850 using a none reference cooling solution. Hopefully this can be of some help.

Edit: uploaded the vanilla bios..

 

[rake]

My issue was power related in the end, although I did end up tweaking both cards. What exactly are you battling with?

 

[rake]

Excuse the double post.

I had a look at that bios and it is undervolting the UVD PowerPlay state (state 2) and still expecting it to run at 625/993. I don't necessarily know that that would cause a problem, but it looks suspicious.

Also... that has to be the ugliest fan duty slope I've ever seen

 

[LifeFlayer]

Excuse the double post.

I had a look at that bios and it is undervolting the UVD PowerPlay state (state 2) and still expecting it to run at 625/993. I don't necessarily know that that would cause a problem, but it looks suspicious.

Also... that has to be the ugliest fan duty slope I've ever seen

Yeah haha, that fan slope was really disgusting. I am still trying to tweak the fan thing with the table as the recommended option doesn't seem to work. Now the fan spins at 15% while below 40c and around 65% when the temp gets high. Some of the later fan states never really get triggered... Not too sure what may be the cause... lol. I've actually set state 2 to run at 1.15v instead as I've also found that weird. It did remain at 1.05v at the start of power state 2 by default and only increased if the load was really high. I guess the voltage is set to auto if it is "---"...

 

[rake]

I guess the voltage is set to auto if it is "---"...

Yes. On my chip it equates to 1.120v after Catalyst has it's way with it.

 

[rake]

Yeah haha, that fan slope was really disgusting. I am still trying to tweak the fan thing with the table as the recommended option doesn't seem to work. Now the fan spins at 15% while below 40c and around 65% when the temp gets high. Some of the later fan states never really get triggered... Not too sure what may be the cause... lol.

Be sure to re-install Catalyst cleanly after a vBIOS flash else you may get readouts in CCC and even GPU-Z that don't seem consistent with the duty slope you've 'programmed'. This seems particularly true for CrossFireX setups.

I usually uninstall, boot to DOS, flash vBios, boot up Windows then re-install drivers. Oh and if further adjustments are needed, I prefer to start with a fresh copy of the original vBIOS each time.

 

[LifeFlayer]

Be sure to re-install Catalyst cleanly after a vBIOS flash else you may get readouts in CCC and even GPU-Z that don't seem consistent with the duty slope you've 'programmed'. This seems particularly true for CrossFireX setups.

I usually uninstall, boot to DOS, flash vBios, boot up Windows then re-install drivers. Oh and if further adjustments are needed, I prefer to start with a fresh copy of the original vBIOS each time.

I've been extremely sloppy in that regard. I just flashed it with Winflash while CCC is still installed and then simply rebooted the machine afterward. Maybe I should give it another try and see if it'll work. There are so many simple things I would have overlooked without the help of this forums and its members. Thanks guys for helping me to enjoy my 4850 to its full potential.

 

[ComfyNumb]

Need to know what motherboard you have!!! I had a early am2+ that didnt support the higher watt phenoms.. Purchased a 9600 not knowing this... The strain put on the board from the extra power requirments the 9600 needed caused problems with my vid card.. Poor perf.. wouldnt overclock.. crashes. Built a different system and the video card overclocks like a champ and is a beast at fps!! So just let me know your mobo.. and your cpu!! Lets see if they fall in spec.........

 

[ComfyNumb]

My bad, new to this forum.. Just noticed the system spec thing on the side..... I guess thats not your problem... A different mobo made my 4850 a brand new card!! Believe it or not. The board i had that was giving me a problem was a MSI to though, which is a little wierd. 790fx Platinum...